It has long been recognized that the pulp content of natural citrus beverages such as orange juice, is an important contributor to the appearance and mouthfeel of the beverage. The art has long sought a dried pulp-like component which could be added to citrus-flavored beverages, such as those pepared for powdered soft drink mixes, to provide an appearance and mouthfeel which closely resembles that of fresh natural pulp.
Although there is an ample supply of citrus pulp, especially orange and lemon pulp, and there have been prior processes disclosed for producing dehydrated cellular citrus material, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,365,310 to Webster, the use of dried natural citrus pulp as an additive to a powdered foodstuff, designed to be reconstituted in water, has not proven satisfactory. It has been found that the dried natural pulp of the prior art does not satisfactorily reconstitute when placed in water and does not provide, when used in a citrus-flavored beverage, a pulp that is acceptable as regards appearance and mouthfeel. These dried pulps have also been found to be excessively friable and also tend to clump and sink when dispersed in water. It has further been found that even freeze drying of untreated pulp does not result in dried material which is suitable for use in powdered beverages mixes as the layer of pulp material collapses during the freeze drying cycle.
In light of the problems with dried natural citrus pulp there have been attempts to produce synthetic pulp material; however, most of these materials have proven to have an excessively mushy or slimy consistency which detracts from their acceptability. Further, most of the synthetic pulp previously produced was not capable of being produced in a dry particulate form which is capable of rapid hydration. U.S. Pat. No. 3,446,625 to Belthen discloses the production of a synthetic pulp which claims to overcome the problems of the prior art. According to one embodiment of this patent, a synthetic pulp product is produced by co-precipitating a water soluble gum (e.g. sodium alginate) insolubilized by calcium and/or potassium cations and a cold-water insoluble or cold-water soluble gum (e.g. locust bean gum). However, for purposes of product labeling and to satisfy the desire of many consumers to consume natural products as well as to avoid the processing and/or cost involved with the production of a synthetic pulp, it would be desirable to obtain a highly functional dried citrus pulp using natural citrus pulp as the starting material.